Re: rman (PolyglotMan) + TkMan are now under the Artistic License.
Hi.
In <[🔎] 87u2cudetp.wl@arafune2.ushioda.riec.tohoku.ac.jp>,
on Wed, 09 Aug 2000 17:22:10 +0900,
on Re: rman (PolyglotMan) + TkMan are now under the Artistic License.,
Ryuichi Arafune <arafune@debian.org> wrote:
> >>>>> In <[🔎] 20000807234525.C7256@deadbeast.net>
> >>>>> Branden Robinson <branden@deadbeast.net> wrote:
> B.R.> 1) Is XFree86 the place where continuing work on the DPS library is going
> B.R.> to continue to happen?
> Yes, may be.
> B.R.> 2) Is the DPS library in dpsclient a separate implementation? The DPS
> B.R.> library in XFree86 is copyrighted by Adobe, but is under a free license.
> I don't know about that. Does this web page help you?
> http://dps.sourceforge.net/
I have checked this site. It shows:
%%%%%
Other implementations of DPS
For many years, Adobe used to license a DPS implementation (based on their CPSI
PostScript interpreter) to workstation vendors. This implementation is included
in a number of commercial systems, including NeXTStep/OpenStep, SunOS 4, Sun
Solaris 2, IBM AIX, HP/UX and earlier versions of Digital Unix/Tru64 Unix
(Compaq appears no longer to provide DPS in the latest versions of Tru64 Unix).
The current status of the Adobe DPS implementation is unclear, but it might be
the case that they no longer support it.
The GNUstep project have been working for some time already on dgs, a
standalone implementation of a large subset of DPS. Dgs is not a server
extension, but a standalone program that provides DPS services to the client by
talking to the X server using core X -- in Adobe parlance, a DPS/NX agent.
Our project is fairly independent from the dgs effort; indeed, there is little
or no code to share due to very significant differences in the designs.
However, we are in touch with the dgs developers, who have a fair amount of
experience with DPS implementation. Furthermore, we are using the DPS support
code in Ghostscript; this was all implemented by L. Peter Deutsch with dgs in
mind.
%%%%%
The source of the current dpsclient package maintained by Arafune is dgs,
and it includes DPS/ subdirectory where the libraries and utilities for
writing applications that use the Display PostScript extension to X.
These libraries and utilities for DPS was written and distributed by
Adobe Systems Inc, as June 1994 release.
The DPS Software in XFree86 4.0 seems to be based on
ftp://dps.sourceforge.net/pub/dps/DPS.tar.gz, which is the Adobe
client library, dated 3 June 1996, according to the README in that place.
So I suppose that the upstream of DPS software is the Adobe in both case
of XFree86 4.0 and dgs.
I have checked ftp://alpha.gnu.org/gnu/gnustep/snap, and found the snapshot
of dgs, dgs-000709.tar.gz. So the development on dgs has been continued
independent from the work for XFree86 4.0, I think.
The DPS library in dgs-000709 seems to be the release of February 14, 1995,
written and distributed by Adobe. STATUS file in dgs-00079 said:
%%%%%
Status Report
*************
Last updated Jan 2000.
DPSclient Library
=================
Version 6.1 has been integrated into DGS. New configuration and
Makefiles have been added, and a few bug fixes are included.
Ghostscript
===========
The Display Ghostscript System currently uses a special release of
Aladdin Ghostscript. While Aladdin Ghostscript is distributed under the
Aladdin Public license, this special, stripped-down release is
distributed under the terms of the GPL. Version 5.50.
%%%%%
> B.R.> 3) What is shipped by dpsclient* that is not by my libdps* packages? I
> B.R.> have attached the contents of these packages below; I don't expect this to
> B.R.> change except for Debian-specific README's and stuff.
>
> The files are in dpsclient but not in your package. (except under
> /usr/share/doc/)
>
> /usr/bin/makepsres
> /usr/bin/pswrap
> /usr/lib/libdps.so.0.0.1
> /usr/lib/libdpstk.so.0.0.1
> /usr/lib/libpsres.so.0.0.1
> /usr/lib/libdps.so.0
> /usr/lib/libdpstk.so.0
> /usr/lib/libpsres.so.0
In the source tree of dgs, DPS/README said:
clients
pswrap - a utility to compile PostScript code fragments into C procedures
makepsres - a utility to create PostScript resource location files
lib
dps - the interface library to the Display PostScript extension
dpstk - a toolkit of useful routines for Display PostScript programmers
psres - utilities to locate fonts and other PostScript resources
The counterparts in XFree86 4.0 is
clients
pswrap: xc/config/pswrap
makepsres: xc/programs/makepsres
lib
dps: xc/lib/dps
dpstk: xc/lib/dpstk
psres: xc/lib/psres
I have checked using "diff -ru". psres is not so different between dgs and
XFree86-4. dps and dpstk have many diff, but most of them seem to be some
updates to ANSI C style in XFree86 4.0 (maybe the upstream change, but I don't
know).
> The files are in dpsclient-dev but not in your package.:
> Nothing
>
> B.R.> 4) Is there any documentation on the DPS library API anywhere? There is so
> B.R.> little information about this library in the XFree86 sources that I'm
> B.R.> having trouble even writing an intelligent package description.
> I don't know, sorry.
The source tree of dgs package have DPS/doc/ subdir. And there are some
document by Adobe, DEC (partly), and maybe else (if there are, I have not
checked thoroughly).
And ftp://dps.sourceforge.net/pub/dps/DPS.tar.gz has the same documents.
(I have checked this by using diff -u) So you can check the documents
in the Debian source package of dps.
> B.R.> 5) I get the feeling that programs written using the dpsclient library will
> B.R.> not be able to be simply recompiled against libdps-dev. If that is the
> B.R.> case we will need to continue to provide the old dpsclient package during
> B.R.> the transition.
>
> I think this is good idea.
> I think XFree86-4.0 is not stable as 3.3.6. So the transition does
> not go smoothly. ( At least, I want to use 3.3.6 for the present. )
> I will maintain dpclient package until almost users use XFree86-4.
I don't know about this, but maybe it is the good to keep to provide the dgs
implementation of DPS/NX.
Regards.
--
Taketoshi Sano: <sano@debian.org>,<sano@debian.or.jp>,<kgh12351@nifty.ne.jp>
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